This disclosure relates to digital networking, specifically to the replication and switching of digital data signals over a network.
A great number of business transactions are conducted over digital networks, including transactions involving the purchase and sale of securities. Such transactions generate a large and ever-increasing amount of raw real-time data. For example, digital market data information from the NASDAQ securities market can reach data rates on the order of 2 Gb/s at peak trading hours. The handling of such large streams of data introduces competing challenges. Most computing systems do not have sufficient power to process the entirety of the data generated in the electronic marketplace. Consequently, it is desirable for individual clients to receive processed data that includes only the information important to their own needs. However, the time needed to process this data can introduce significant and often unpredictable non-deterministic delays in the client's receipt of the data. Particularly in the case of clients performing high-frequency trading (HFT) of exchange-traded securities, even delays on the order of microseconds can lead to trading losses that could otherwise have been avoided if electronic switching latencies were reduced. To improve the efficiency of electronic business transactions, it is desirable to minimize any delays introduced by transmission, switching, and processing of data transmitted over a network.